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A recent question asked about joining two adjectives together. It used the following example:

(example 1) きれいで静かな町

As I understand it, this is the combination of the 連用形 of きれいだ with the 連体形 of 静かだ. Let's turn this example into 終止形 instead of 連体形 for my question:

(example 2) 町はきれいで静かだ

According to this answer, you can also join two adjectives with し. In this case, I would replace で with だ and add し:

(example 3) 町はきれいだし静かだ

I think this means the same thing as example 2. (According to sawa's answer here, the て-form has two restrictions, "it implies temporal order" and "volitionality of what is connected must match". Neither restriction sounds relevant in this case, so I don't think replacing で with だし changes the meaning.)

However, what if I were to change it back to 連体形 like in example 1? Can I join two adjectives with し like this:

(example 4) きれいだし静かな町

I feel like example 4 is wrong because it parses as two separate clauses, like きれいだ plus 静かな町, which doesn't make sense to me. In contrast, I think example 1 is parsed as きれいで静かな modifying 町, which does make sense to me.

Am I correct that you can't join adjectives with し before a noun like in example 4?

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  • Strictly speaking し is not to be used on its own. The structure is ～し～し. (It does occur by itself in spoken language, but only by ellipsis.) The result can't modify any noun phrase directly. – Earthliŋ Feb 13 '13 at 20:50
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    @user1205935 I'm looking at the examples for し on 大辞林. A lot of them only contain one し. What am I missing? –  Feb 13 '13 at 20:56
  • I found this. I feel that the other uses derive from ～し～し, i.e. a single ～し suggests that there is a list of things. Delete "in spoken language" from my previous comment. – Earthliŋ Feb 13 '13 at 21:11

1 Answers1

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Strictly speaking し is better used in its full form ～し～し. E.g.

この町は美しいし静かだし、住みやすそうですね。
This town is pretty, it is quiet—it seems to be very liveable.

(It does occur by itself, but a longer list is usually implied. There are other uses that derive from this one, but that is a different matter.)

It lists any number of properties, which support your statement in the rest of the sentence. The list, however, is grammatically removed from the rest of the sentence. That is, the result can't modify anything (na-adjective, noun) directly. Your examples 3 & 4 are borderline. They would sound more natural with a structure ～し～し like my example above.

Earthliŋ
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